If You Steal Something, is it Ever Really Yours?
by Rikkamaru
Summary: As two dragons wage a passive-aggressive war around him, Shuuzou wants nothing more than to go back to when his life was infinitely simpler. And then, suddenly, that war isn't so passive anymore. Gen, Nijimura-centric. One-shot, No Pairings.


Don't own Kuroko no Basuke or the Inheritance Cycle.

Note: They are in the world of the Inheritance Cycle. As such, they will primarily be speaking the Human Language. So, English as that was the language I read it in.

If You Steal Something, is it Ever Really Yours?

* * *

When Shuuzou walked onto the courtyard where he would be training the newest Dragon Riders, he gazed out at the assembly of new Riders and, for the briefest moment, he _seethed_. He looked at the group of hopeful, content faces and in that instant hated them more than anything else until he reined the feeling in.

As brief as the moment of unadulterated hatred may have been, his dragon felt it none the less and snickered darkly in his mind. _"My, Shuuzou, such anger,"_ he teased, and the Rider nearly growled aloud at his words. He felt his _partner_ (oh how he despised that word) shift in amusement behind him.

He pointedly ignored the giant lizard (and ducked without even thinking as a grey tail sailed over where his head had just been) and looked over the new Riders-in-training and their dragons. "Greetings Riders," he said, "I am Shuuzou Nijimura; please call me Nijimura. I will be your flight and aerial combat instructor. We will not be flying today," he told them sternly, causing a ripple of forlorn groans.

"Shut up." He snapped, bringing them to attention immediately. "Most if not all of you have flown on your dragons already, so don't bother complaining. Instead we'll be going over safety and things that you _can't_ fucking do." He paused and smirked a little. "For instance, you shouldn't pull a move our leader has in the past and try to ride your dragon bareback. It will end poorly for your legs."

The trainees looked incredulous. "There's no way Master Eragon did that," one boy, Takao (Shuuzou refuses to call them by their first names until he knows that they'll live long enough for him to be that invested) denied, his green-scaled dragon huffing in agreement.

"_Do not speak so slanderously of our Leader."_ It – he – said sternly, and Shuuzou outright laughed at that while his dragon bristled in anger.

"_Shut your mouth Midorima!"_ he snarled. _"You don't know shit!"_

"What he's trying to say," Shuuzou interrupted, kicking his dragon slightly on the side as Takao and Midorima puffed up in anger. "Is that, while Shadeslayer himself denies such happenings, Lady Brightscales has told me otherwise. Believe who you will." That shut the two up, but they both eyed his dragon belligerently. Shuuzou wasn't that surprised.

Haizaki could probably piss off the dead if he tried hard enough.

* * *

Shuuzou had lived a simple life once.

He and his family were gem merchants, travelling here and there to sell the gems the Dwarves gave them and splitting the profit between the two groups. He had a younger brother and sister that he absolutely adored, a caring father and a distant but kind mother. It was simple, but he was happy.

And then a shadow fell upon their caravan and _he_ appeared. _He_ tore Shuuzou's brother and sister apart, and burned his parents alive with silver fire. _He_ slaughtered them all, and _he laughed_.

Then _he_ pinned Shuuzou down and was ready to rip his head off when _he_ paused, and grinned a grin filled with razor sharp teeth. Magic ran up and down _his_ body, and when it reached Shuuzou, something snapped into place in his mind and the former gem merchant _screamed_.

Something was in his mind, something that hadn't been there before, and it _burned_. As the thing settled, he felt it shift as it fed him amusement and glee, and it filled him with disgust as the cancerous tumor of magic and intent rooted itself into place.

_He_ had burrowed into his mind, and enforced a link where none had been and where there had been no room for it, and had made them _partners_. To this day Shuuzou had to fight down the bile that rose whenever he thought about, had to restrain his own hatred as the creature that had slaughtered everyone he had ever loved stayed by his side in some perverted sense of loyalty.

Shuuzou hated being a Dragon Rider.

* * *

The next week Shuuzou walked out to the courtyard again, and managed to catch snippets of their conversation before they caught sight of him.

"I asked some people; they said that Shuuzou's dragon was originally wild." That was Takao.

A brash voice, Shuuzou thinks the Rider's name was Kagami. "I heard that too! And that Haizaki actually spent weeks looking for him so that they could bond!"

"_Listen to how they romanticize your actions that day,"_ he told his dragon, spite in his venomous tone. _"'How amazing it is that Haizaki searched day after day for his Rider, burning everything in his path, including his illustrious Rider's own family.' If only they knew."_

Haizaki laughed at him, brushing against his side like a cat. _"Indeed, it was quite impressive of me to not let anything get in the way of our bonding. Not even those pesky siblings of yours."_

Shuuzou couldn't have stopped the growl that left his lips if he'd tried, so he didn't bother and watched as all of the Riders jumped to attention, embarrassed at being caught. Their dragons, however, just stared at Shuuzou and his dragon, nervous for reasons they wouldn't yet understand.

He ignored their attention. "We'll start with evasive moves; barrel rolls, dives, camouflage and so on. Let's go." Without waiting for them to begin moving, Shuuzou jumped easily onto Haizaki's back as the dragon crouched to leap into the air. They were airborne immediately afterward, and sometimes Shuuzou was disgusted with how in synch they were with one another.

The trainees joined them slowly, and Haizaki circled the group lazily as Shuuzou counted them. As always, he had to squint to catch sight of the light blue Kuroko, though his Rider's bright red hair and the pink-scaled Momoi chasing him made finding him a little easier than when he was wandering about on his own. Sakurai was yelling apologetically from Momoi's back, and Shuuzou didn't even resist the urge to facepalm.

Imayoshi and his dragon, the dark-blue Aomine, were both outright laughing at the pair, and Shuuzou feared the day that enemies returned for the Riders to tear down, as those two would probably be in the frontlines of that particular conflict. The golden Kise and his Rider Kasamatsu were also amused, though Kise was the only one of the two laughing as Kasamatsu smirked but focused on their trainer.

Takao and Midorima were amused and disapproving respectively, with Takao laughing and Midorima growling under his breath at their actions, both only stopping to eye the circling Haizaki distrustfully. Shuuzou approved. Himuro and the purple Murasakibara were focusing entirely on Shuuzou and Haizaki. Well, Himuro was focusing; Murasakibara was yawning tiredly, his form dwarfing every other dragon there, Haizaki included.

Shuuzou sighed and brushed against all of their minds gently, a simple reminder to pay attention which they obeyed quickly. Haizaki spoke in their minds, knowing Shuuzou's discomfort in doing so. _"We'll show the basics of dodging and evasion, and you will practice those movements."_

"_What's the point?"_ Aomine asked disdainfully, ignoring the warning in his Rider's mind. _"What could possibly defeat us dragons?"_

Shuuzou smiled without any humor and let Haizaki put on a burst of speed, bearing down on the younger dragon without any remorse. Haizaki's form engulfed Aomine, his wings buffeting the other down and letting out a snarl that instantly set off warning bells in every being's mind that was there. _"Well aren't you an arrogant little shit,"_ he sneered. _"Can you truly take on a group of Lethrblaka as you are now? Or a Nidhwal? For all intents and purposes, you are _useless_ as you are now, and an array of nothing but aggressive maneuvers will get you nowhere."_

Cowed, the dark-blue dragon ducked his head a little and fell into place, Momoi giving him a reprimanding smack with her tail as well. "Now then," Shuuzou said aloud, returning their attention to him for a moment, "we will be showing all of you evasion maneuvers, barring Murasakibara who will be learning defensive moves instead due to his size." All of them, dragons and Riders alike, nodded in understanding, and began getting to work.

* * *

As they were all moving to the mess hall for their dinner, the trainees saw a rather infamous dragon for the first time. His blood red scales glittered in the hall's light, and his equally red eyes watched them all intently as they passed by him. Shuuzou nodded to the dragon in greeting, and was rewarded with a light nod back.

Once they were farther away Kasamatsu let out a shiver and shifted closer to Kise. "Who the hell was that?" he hissed, clearly uneasy.

Shuuzou offered him a look of sympathy but said nothing on it. "That's Akashi. He hatched without a Rider, and in doing so completely removed the spell placed on him that had him wait for his Rider to appear. I helped raise the whelp for a while, and then he just…stopped really working with other people." Shuuzou thought nothing of the ruby gaze that had latched onto them but, judging by the shifting of all of the newer Riders and dragons, it clearly unnerved them.

They ate easily and happily, the new Riders clearly getting along well with the older Riders, even if their dragons were bullied a little for acting up. Shuuzou ignored the many whacks his own dragon received over the course of the night, expecting the idiot dragon to have his mouth get the better of him.

At some point Akashi joined the dinner, and sat unnervingly close to Shuuzou. The Rider ignored it, as well as the way the conversation muted around him as a result of the normally reclusive dragon hovering so close to anyone. When Akashi's tail brushed against Shuuzou's arm, he had to stop himself from flinching as the bond in his head gave a painful shudder. Haizaki immediately closed in, snarling and snapping at the red dragon, but Akashi merely glanced at his grey elder, gave Shuuzou another long look, and slinked off once more.

The conversation slowly picked up once more, but the former gem merchant found that he couldn't contribute as much, his appetite gone with the bond's throbbing and Haizaki's hatred and fear poisoning it further.

Later that night, Shuuzou was settling in for bed and Haizaki stalked over, his paranoid looking around and tensing giving Shuuzou no illusions as to where he was sleeping that night. Sure enough, Haizaki picked him up and placed him in the dais that the grey dragon curled up in, the Rider tucked in near his neck.

"Really?" was all Shuuzou said, one eyebrow risen in question.

Haizaki growled. "There's nothing I hate more than someone who steals my hard-earned thefts. You're staying here tonight."

Shuuzou rolled his eyes and rolled over into a more comfortable position. "Whatever."

That night he dreamt about Akashi's first words. The hatchling had been surprisingly mute, only sharing his emotions with Shuuzou and even then only when Haizaki wasn't nearby. The two had been watching the grey dragon flying around above them, sparring with many of the other dragons on the island, when Akashi turned to Shuuzou, red eyes wide.

"_Do you hate him?"_ he'd asked, childish but certain in his question.

Shuuzou looked at the hatchling in surprise; those weren't exactly the most common first words for a dragon to say. But he thought about the question, really considered it, and answered honestly. "Yes." He shrugged a little to try and remove the tension that'd settled there, the bitterness and resentment that never really went away lashing out like an angry viper. "He took me away from everything I knew, everyone I loved, and why? Just to prove that he _could_." His hands clenched a little. "So yes, I would say that I hate him."

Akashi just nodded at his words, and settled into the Rider's lap. _"I hate him too,"_ he confided, just before Shuuzou's bond quivered and Haizaki came barreling down, roaring in fury.

Something about the way Akashi said those words, that quiet honesty and hardening resolve, woke Shuuzou with a foreboding shiver. He quietly watched Haizaki's form as it rose and fell in sleep, and rolled over once more.

Sleep eluded him for the rest of the night.

* * *

The months dragged on relentlessly, and it was boring Kazunari to death.

There was only so much they could do by practicing on the island, and their flight instructor seemed to know that as well, but it wasn't like there was anything Nijimura could do about that. And it wasn't like any of them wanted to approach him on the subject, since his bastard of a dragon was constantly trailing after him.

The older Riders seemed to think it was normal, cute even, but Kazunari thought he could feel something darker about the grey dragon's actions, and Midorima's suspicious eyeing told him that he wasn't alone in these thoughts.

When the tedium finally got to him, Kazunari challenged all of the new Riders to a mock battle over the ocean, a bit of a way's away from the island. They all agreed easily enough, and the fight was awesome in Kazunari's humble opinion.

It actually came down to a battle between Kagami and Kasamatsu, Kuroko gliding just above the water with Kise close behind when a grey blur streaked past the watching Kazunari.

"_You idiots! DON'T GET SO CLOSE TO THE WATER!"_ Kazunari flinched at the mental shout, as did the others, but it came just in time.

Kuroko and Kise managed to glide high enough to avoid a sudden surge of teeth and overwhelming hunger. A Nidwhal. Kazunari stared at it; he'd never seen one up close, and had eventually begun to believe them to be stories the older Riders told the younger ones to keep them from wandering too far from the island.

Clearly he'd been wrong.

He watched as the monster rose even higher now aiming for Nijimura and Haizaki while the two tried to escape it as the others panicked around him. But even with the chaos surrounding the Rider and his dragon, Kazunari managed to pick out a streak of red colliding with Haizaki and sending the grey dragon spinning down. Nijimura fell as well, but the red streak caught him easily.

It was Akashi, Kazunari realized with a feeling of apprehension. Had he been there this entire time, or did he follow Nijimura and Haizaki out here? The questions running around in his head slowed when he heard his flight instructor give out a shout of pain from atop Akashi's back.

Then they stopped altogether when he heard a roar, a snapping of monstrous teeth, and shiver-inducing _scream_.

'Oh god,' Kazunari thought, gripping more tightly to Midorima as he felt the dragon's own horror reflected back at him. 'Haizaki just got killed by a Nidwhal. We just got Haizaki _killed_. Ohgodohgodohgod.'

Before his panic could overrun everything else in his mind, their flight instructor painfully lifted himself to a better position atop Akashi's back and the red dragon began flying back to the island. Midorima immediately followed after him, as did the others, and Kazunari just rested his head on Midorima's back, wanting nothing more than for all of this to just be one bad dream.

But he knew that this was a nightmare he would never wake up from, and felt Midorima move closer to Nijimura as that registered in their minds.

* * *

Akashi watched as Shuuzou's chest rose and fell in the healer's room, the Eldunari scattered around him humming faintly as they reached out to heal the Rider's mind. Whatever they were seeing was disturbing them greatly as Akashi heard barely stifled growls and worried murmurings from them. It makes sense; it's quite likely that only Akashi knew of the circumstances behind Shuuzou and Haizaki's bonding.

The red dragon curled up closer around Shuuzou in response, his mind brushing the Rider's in an attempt to settle his mind from the trauma it just went through. Forced bond or no, having it ripped out of your head in such a way could leave scars in the Rider's mind, and Akashi would see to it that Shuuzou had a complete recovery.

The new bond glowing in his mind and tied to Shuuzou's only made that resolution more certain.

Akashi wasn't surprised that Shuuzou was the Rider he was meant to bond with; he'd felt that it were the case for the two years Shuuzou had been on the island. It was in the noirette's presence that Akashi had hatched and, though neither of them had spoken of it to anyone, tried to bond with the Rider before the present one made by Haizaki forced him away.

For two years Akashi had been forced to watch the man who was meant to be his Rider interact with that disgrace of a dragon that was Haizaki, and he'd stewed in his anger and resentment until he just couldn't take it any longer. He would have Shuuzou as his Rider. He made sure of it.

As he collided with Haizaki out over the ocean, Akashi had been careful to hook his claws into Haizaki wing membranes, and _tear_. He ripped bloody gouges in Haizaki's wings, ensuring that he wouldn't be able to alter his course to survive the encounter with the Nidwhal. It took months of waiting, of quietly suggesting to the trainees that they have a mock-battle above the ocean, but it finally came to a head.

And now Haizaki was dead.

Akashi let the pleasant feelings that came with that thought transfer over their new bond, and felt Shuuzou shift a little in his sleep, burrowing closer to Akashi's warmth. Akashi huffed happily and laid his head down.

Shuuzou may very well hate him when he finally awoke.

But that didn't matter, Akashi decided, so long as their bond remained, he couldn't care less how long it took to regain Shuuzou's trust in him. He waited two years to get him.

He could wait a little longer.

* * *

So...yeah. I just wanted a somewhat darker story to be written, and this came up. It actually started out a lot darker, where Mayuzumi was Akashi's Rider that he'd just chosen so that he would hatch, and when the time came he killed Mayuzumi _and_ Haizaki and enforced the bond between him and Nijimura. Then I went, "...Let's _not_ do that," and here we are.

Please review.

Ja ne!


End file.
